### Chapter 4: The Helm of Fate and the Unholy Sword of Death
The Ascended Angel, Gabriel... A problem to be solved..,he mused internally, the realm holding its breath as he dictated the very law, as its collective fate lay in his hands... as if itself, in all its splendor, was dreaming of thy End.
His perfect pale face still rested on his palms, his facade unperturbed. Then he sighed, retracting his almost leaking Dream Essence—a glorious moment of salvation for the Mortal Realms, and Fate weaving their destinies.
"Spell not, O Lowly Threader of the Looms of Fate, a decree on me," he spoke, his eyes closed. He found the spectacle of gazing upon a lowly deity—so much below his reverence—truly insulting. "The Dream heeds no command... and abides no wishes."
"Your words, O Weaver, hold to a certain minimum things that are true," he added, his hands dropping from Vortagem's figure. "Thus, its path I have decided to follow. Rejoice, O Weaver... You truly have bent The Dream to your whims, and within thy looms of Fate, you have woven thy Grand Shaper. Truly a loathsome feat... yet still a mere fleeting victory."
"I find great delight in your words, O Dreamlord," Lady Fate's voice reverberated across the very Chambers of Fate, new destinies birthed and woven in that instant. Reality itself was proliferating. "Do thee, the one dubbed The Lord before the Creation, perhaps wish to know more about this Perilous Rite of the Hypnoapotheosis?"
"Tone down your authority before me," he muttered, heaving himself up from his throne. "That I would need no further. I shall see for myself—The Dream, all that there is..." His silver eyes gleamed like liquid suspended in his irises. "For certain, the limit of perseverance in interaction with a lowly deity as thee, I have expended. You are worth no further of my words."
He cast a side glance to Vortagem—a subconscious command. The crow swirled into a mass of dark energy, same as the throne, drowning the entirety of the Tapestry of Fate in a maze of stars and whispers. He was using his Dream Essence.
He knew, for certain, the perilous penance if he proceeded to infuse more. The maze of stars and whispers withdrew slowly, revealing back to view the glorious Tapestry.
He, The Dream, was trapped. Powerless. Defenseless. Truly diminutive.
Before his silver eyes, amidst his retreating Essence and the brooding darkness that threatened to drown Fate, a helm tore in from the nothingness, shimmering before him. It was pure incandescent gold, with a surface woven by the looms of destiny, polished like pure knowledge. Two great horns, like those of the Terrific Star Weeper, curved outwards, upwards, then retracted, framing the helm itself. The helm held no sockets, only a complex weave of destinies at both ends.
The Helm of Fate—one of the two divine Relics of Fate.
"This is no more than an allegiance... to The Revered Dream," her voice pierced his now-still darkness, jettisoned with the light of stars and the cacophony of whispers. "It would veil, to an extent, your activities from the one above... but pay heed, O Dream Lord. It would only withstand if nothing but a tiny bit of thy Essence. Any more shall herald its destruction. I mean no folly, O Lord Dream... but still, I reckon you use it with wisdom."
The Dream—how low had he now become, accepting inconsistent aids from beings beneath thy Creation? But still...
"I feel nothing but gratitude. You have done well, O Weaver," he said, his hands clutching the helm before him. The moment his fingers made contact with the Helm of Fate, its golden glow dimmed, devoured by the encroaching darkness that spread from his palms, overwriting its very nature to a dark helm with a convoluted vortex of swirling stars at the eyeless visor.
Now it was worthy of being worn by one truly beyond—The Dream. Putting on the helm, his entire visage changed. It was no longer the tattered tunic he wore, but a dark armor of night and a cape of pure dark matter, swirling with the light and breath of galaxies, stars, dreams, and wishes, all represented no more as twinkling stars laden in his armor. The helm now held the tinge of red auroras.
He clutched his hands. He was still weak—far weaker than he really was, a mere drop in the ocean of his true being. But now he wasn't helpless.
The swirling mass of darkness drowned the entire Tapestry, clouding his dark silhouette, who stood in the midst of the swirling maze, his crow on his shoulder—like the incarnation of Reckoning itself. The vortex occasionally shimmered with auroras of all colors known to mortals and beyond. A truly terrific spectacle.
And when at last the mist receded, The Dream was gone.
"You truly are the one from beyond Creation... The Dream, The Nameless," her voice tore the empty sanctuary, the realm resuming its initial camaraderie. The golden rivers flowed; the mortal colossal images resumed their posture of unsung praises, only she could hear.
"And... your lowly ally shall patiently wait."
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The Realm of Death held no beautifications or ornaments, no life, no breath—only the dark Null and the eternal silence. Within this stillness lay the souls and essences of countless fallen, those who saw and those who lived through the birth of Time. This realm, this dark expanse—this was Death itself. Just as he was now the Vortex and The Dreaming, so was Death, The Null.
But Death itself wasn't the End. It was merely the transition between being and unbeing. The true End comes beyond that... it is, and will always be, nothing but a mere illusion that preys on the life of mortals and vulnerables alike. It held no meaning other than a shadow of the beginning and a reason for mortal living.
He stood, clad in his Armor of Dreams and wishes, faintly casting this dream aglow... his own darkness rewriting the very expanse, birthing it with stars and auroras.
Unfortunately, he had no time to spare. He could say this wasn't the best of his moods.
"Should I call on you, O Death?" his voice resounded through the helm, the entirety of the realm shuddering. "How lost has your reverence become? Or perhaps... should I bring to being the initial Light that started all things and deem your realm, The Null, a futility?" His dreary Orb solidified ethereally on his palm.
For now, he lacked by a far margin to do what he had claimed... but the threat itself was enough. The slave would take the bait. After all, Death was an infinite far below The Fate.
"You, O Dream Lord, I deem worthy of reverence if not worship," a voice boomed across the null, the realm shuddering, laced with dark fissures. "The stench of Death from thy Lord... I now withdraw. It was no more than a mere error. I weep for mercy, O Lord before the beginning." The voice, eerie as it was, came from an enigma standing before him—an extension of the true entity Death. It manifested as a towering figure shrouded in tattered robes of void-black fabric that seemed to absorb all light, its form skeletal yet fluid, like smoke given bones. A pale, gaunt face peered from beneath a hood, eyes hollow pits that reflected endless oblivion, lips curled in a perpetual, mirthless grin.
"O Enemy of Creation, your wish for mercy I have granted... yet for your errors, I need from you two favors," he muttered, his visor flashing purple and a hint of iridescence as the vortex spun further.
"Speak, O Dream Lord... If it's beyond my power and ideals, I shall comply," Death's words bounded, cold as a whisper.
"I care not of your ideals, O lowly entity," he muttered. The realm flashed a dangerous crimson, like a great fissure gloriously severing the darkness in the Realm of Death. "O Death, you possess two Relics: one of Authority, the other of Reaping. The Sword and the Scythe. Lend me the Sword... and I shall let you bask in the essence of a Fallen Angel."
A still silence bathed the entire realm. Two enigmas, borne of the darkness, yet one held more primal magnitude and dominion—The Dream.
"You now... are a mortal, O Dream Lord," Death uttered, its hollow eyes narrowing slightly, a faint tremor in the void around it betraying unease. "My sword shall drain thee of thy light of life."
"I shall not. The very entirety of all that exists deems it not. For my Fall would be the unraveling of all that there is," his voice tore the stillness, his hands petting the crow on his shoulder, his silver eyes locking on the meager entity before him.
The darkness convoluted, and from the vortex before him, a sword emerged—or what its structure looked like. It was a blade of obsidian shadow, etched with runes that pulsed like dying stars, its hilt wrapped in chains of ethereal bone that whispered forgotten names. The edge gleamed with an unnatural hunger, capable of severing souls from existence.
"You have my gratitude, O Death," he muttered, his hands clutching the blade. The sword tried to erode his will, a insidious pull like icy fingers grasping at his essence—but he eroded it with his own primal power, snuffing the mere spark of rebellion as one might extinguish a flickering candle.
"And when the End comes, we both shall watch its Reckoning... As for my other favor, you shall possess knowledge of it at the appointed time, O dear friend."
Death prostrated in a low bow, its head hung low, skeletal frame folding with unnatural grace as the surroundings erupted in a turbulent swirl of darkness, laden with the tapestry of stars and auroras known to man, deities, and beyond—the collective desires and wishes of all things beneath the Veil and those who reside beyond it. The vortex drowned the silhouette of The Dream, his dark armor like the envoy of night itself, its cape fluttering without the grace of wind, wisping energies of the ethereal. His dark hair, obsidian and flowing, danced in a tone shrouded in the whispers of dreams, freed from the dark horned helm with its convoluted swirling vortex that he wore. A crow perched on his shoulder; one hand held the Orb of the Dreaming, the other grasped the Unholy Sword of Death.
Truly glorious and enigmatic.
"Praise The Dream... Praise the one before Creation, The Nameless... The one worthy of all allegiance," Death's voice boomed across the entirety of the Null and beyond. "And if I may ask, O Revered One, what odyssey do thy seek in the mortal realms?"
Silence plagued the realm, the vortex almost devouring it whole. Then he spoke—The Dream.
"To see the world through the eyes of a mortal,That I had planned yet from that wish a secondary Ambition was born for Over and beyond thy epochs of creation, the eons and the dawns,My Tired eyes gazed upon the wars, the plagues, the flaws... the inconsistencies... Now also I seek to correct them all. The entirety of the system—an existential revolution. Only then will I deem it a spectacle worthy of my eternal attention." His voice paused, then his visage turned toward Death, almost fully drowned by the Vortex of Dreams. The realm responded with a stillness, a testament to Death's own fear.
"Rejoice, O Death, not only for thee but also the gods of your denomination... shall be among the few I judge worthy of thine existence." The tapestry drowned him; the vortex receded into itself before convoluting in a dark orb, disappearing with a dimming swirl.
"Woe to mankind and the entirety of the mortal realms... For truly, The Dream has descended into its spheres," Death muttered, its figure merging with the still darkness.
"Truly woe to mankind."